Rememberance
by Toruushin
Summary: He remembered her last words. The words that she spoke, moments before Galantine had ended her life and the Lionheart. What was he to feel, when his blade had to face her again? [ONE-SHOT]


He remembered her cries.

He remembered the moment Galantine's holy blade had plunged itself in through her mutilated body, reaching out towards the mighty Lion that had required this single sacrifice.

He remembered her offering one last peaceful smile from behind her helmet, the final remnants of his heart fading alongside her last sparks of light.

To think that it would not be by Lancelot's hand, but _his _own who would take away her second life… It was an irony of unfathomable proportions, something which he had fully recognized during his tenure of service to his king.

He couldn't feel anything at the time. He thought he wouldn't be able to feel anything regardless of what else happened.

The fact remained, a burden he would bear alone: he had killed his sister with his own hands.

An act of sororicide, one which had been done in a mixture of love and duty.

All done to one who pure knight at heart, the sacrifice who was the last to fall before the creation of the Holy City.

Tormented endlessly by the lives she had taken, from those of the people of the Holy Land, the so-called knights who stood against his King... those who they had once called 'comrades' in life. Where there had once been nothing but an exuberance for the chivalric values of knighthood had been replaced with a slowly fracturing heart who was losing herself in the bloodshed she participated in. Had it not been such a treasonous thought, Gawain held the opinion that a knight such as herself did not deserve to be a part of their battlefield. That she, a noble warrior who lived by an honorable code, didn't have the right to fight on a battlefield where honor and chivalry were ground into the dirt, for the sake of a righteous cause.

But in the end, the king's orders were absolute. She had picked her side, and lived to serve the King as a result of it.

She had been a flower, slowly tainted and dyed black by the rivers of blood that she had to shed alongside the rest of their fellow Knights of the Round. The expression she had kept had been one of stillness, unwilling to crack in the face of her morals being crushed and denied by none other than herself. Not flinching at the blood which coated her hands and seeped into her armor, never losing the heart of fighting even at the sight of her lance being coated in the blood of the many.

But he knew all too well what she had been doing after every battle. Her once delicate fingers, considered to be the most lily-like, the most beautiful, in all of Camelot, had forever been stained in blood. The constant washing and scrubbing she constantly did in an effort to remove the crimson off had made the once white, beautiful digits an unrecognizable mess of blackened tissue.

Her eyes, once looking at him and her fellows with an unrestrained brightness to them, had been afflicted with heavy bags underneath them. Night after night of being unable to sleep had taken its toll on her body, the endless screaming and accusations she kept on hearing from the extinguished lives ended by her lance never relenting, never stopping. It had gotten to the point she would never go anywhere without her helmet, in an attempt to look as presentable as she could in front of their king.

Gawain knew that this hadn't been her only reason, something most of the other knights could attest to.

Through all of the violence, here had been one lone knight trying to live in the values of being an ideal knight, and ultimately wearing a mask in an attempt to live in this ideal. A mask, which had become cracked, broken, and only became even more fractured, with every life which had been claimed by her spear.

"I'm sorry!" She had weakly cried out, upon laying her body in the way of the Lionheart's sword. "I cannot take this anymore…! All of the death, all of the carnage…I can no longer walk this path you all tread..."

A teary, pained expression, dull eyes bloodshot from a lack of sleep, had pleaded for forgiveness for her treachery. An act of weakness in the face of the enemy, one powered by a strength that none of the others had at the time.

"...Please kill me...please end this failure of a knight…"

Most of the other knights had stayed their blades, unsure of what they should have done.

Mordred, ever the charismatic fool, had been silent for once, anger at her actions momentarily staying Clarent's blade.

Lancelot had been the same, his expression of conflict speaking volumes of the sin that he had no intention of repeating.

Tristain had stayed Failnaught's bowstring, his usual serene expression uncharacteristically showing the slightest degree of unwillingness.

Agravain, ever the loyal advisor even then, prepared his blade to execute the deed in the name of their king.

The Lion King impassively gazed upon the traitor, golden eyes expressing absolutely nothing to the knight who had renounced her path.

"...very well."

But in the end, it was not to be any of them. Only him, and Galantine's everlasting presence.

"I offer you your punishment, Sir Gareth." He had intoned sternly. "Now rest in peace."

"...thank you...Sir Gawain…"

The last piece of his heart had been quickly fading away with his grief, before his ears registered the last words he would ever hear his youngest sister say.

"...fare thee well...Eldest...Brother…"

"..."

In the end, he could say nothing, for what remained of 'Gawain' had vanished, alongside the gold ether which quickly faded away.

Such was that of what he could remember, those memories now insignificant in the face of the duty he now upheld as one of the Knights of the Lion King. Any remnants of the past were irrelevant to the cause King Arthur now upheld, liberating the world from the fate of Humanity's Incineration through the preservation of those with the purest of heart.

He was the defender of the Holy City, the stalwart vanguard who eliminated those who were unworthy or unclean. Galantine shed more blood than ever, each life taken for the sake of the ideal future King Arthur wished for. He, Gawain, was to be the judge, jury, and executioner of any who was unfit to enter Camelot's walls. Anyone who resisted would be subject to the Lion King's Judgement, all blinded by the light of his Gift, the one blessing he would take from his King.

Such was the state of the world, for as long as he could remember ever since the Holy City had been completed...before someone had inevitably resisted, on the day of the Lion King's Judgement.

As foretold in the prophetic message from their King, the Defenders of Humanity had arrived from out of their time in order to stop the completion of the Tower at the Ends of the World.

It had been a red-Haired girl and a purple armored Servant bearing a recognizable cross-shaped shield. Both had been defending those who were unfit to enter the Holy City, fighting against the Enforcement Knights who had been enacting the King's Judgement. It had only taken him a glance to identify the girl as a Master, but seeing the Servant wielding that familiar shield had taken him aback.

Why was _he_ resisting the King's rule? Out of all the people in the world, _he_ should have been more than willing to stand by their side. So why, of all the Knights of the Round Table, was _Galahad_ resisting?

In the end, it didn't matter. If the Master died, resistance would be futile. As good as that Servant was in the utilization of the Shield she wielded, it was ultimately useless in the face of the numbers that she was up against.

It would only be a matter of time before the end arrived-

"**[Ira Lupus]!**"

-_before his heart practically stopped._

Gawain had thought that he had cast aside his heart. He had believed that he had moved on from the past, burying any concerns or selfish desires in his renewed service to his King. He had WANTED to believe that he had renounced his past, moving on as a new Gawain, [Knight of the Lion King].

But when those familiar bright green eyes, brimming with life, had met his own...it was truly hard to believe that Fate wasn't punishing him for the past he chose, and the sins he had committed.

"Truly...it is the end as the prophecy described." He couldn't help but inwardly scoff to himself, as Galantine was raised towards the one person who he had sworn to protect from the moment she had been born. "Forcing me to face a ghost...truly, what else could it be?"

"Eldest...Brother…?" The pained look Gareth was giving him struck at the rekindled embers in his chest, but he pressed forward. She didn't even try to raise her weapon, only pleading with him with words he would not hear. "Why...why do all of this? This...this isn't right at all! -."

"Raise your blade, _Sir Gareth_." Her eyes momentarily widened in shock, as Ira Lupus was readied almost instinctively. "Here we stand, on opposing factions. You know very well, as Servant to the liege you now serve under, that you cannot afford to avoid facing me. We serve two different Lords. Our lords do not come into agreement with one another! Therefore, we are enemies."

Gawain took a moment to reconsider his next words, wanting nothing more than to tell Gareth to join the Lion King's side. Of how he wished for her to fight alongside him, in order to witness the ideal that King Arthur wished to show to what remained of Humanity.

In the end, he knew that it was a pointless effort. Gareth had been summoned by the Female Master.

The Master was an enemy to his King.

Which only meant, knowing his little sister's loyalty, that Gareth, no matter how many times he might try to convince her, would never move away from the new fealty she now swore to uphold.

"...how ironic, that Fate would lead to us crossing blades like this today."

"...indeed it is, _Sir Gawain_," Gareth raised her kite shield, determination pushing aside the grief she felt at the situation she had been forced into. "Indeed it is…"

Even as she charged towards him, Galantine more than ready to meet her lance, Gawain could only express the slightest degree of sorrow, before his heart had been stamped out once more by his duty.

_'__...I'm sorry, Little Sister. Truly, I am.'_

* * *

**Remember to bring Gareth to the Camelot Singularity everyone~**


End file.
